{"id":5387,"date":"2012-05-01T18:35:49","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T00:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=5387"},"modified":"2012-05-03T09:33:20","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T15:33:20","slug":"sagebrush-perches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/01\/sagebrush-perches\/","title":{"rendered":"Sagebrush Perches"},"content":{"rendered":"

For me there’s just something wonderful about sagebrush.\u00a0 In fact, lots of things.<\/p>\n

When sagebrush is wet its smell is almost intoxicating (at least it is for me).\u00a0 When walking\u00a0through it that scent\u00a0comes wafting up and my mind can’t help but wander\u00a0through old memories and cowboy songs.\u00a0\u00a0 I love the silvery-gray-green color it lends to a hillside.\u00a0 The presence of sagebrush is essential for many species for nesting, habitat, protection or food.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sage Sparrows, Sage Thrashers\u00a0and\u00a0Loggerhead Shrikes nest within the plant and larks, Burrowing\u00a0Owls and Long-billed Curlews nest on the ground in stands of sagebrush.\u00a0 Sagebrush dominates the diet of the Sage Grouse during late fall, winter and early spring.<\/p>\n

It also makes for an interesting perch for bird photography even though its growth patterns often put obstructions in front of the bird.\u00a0 Since sage is the dominant plant of the Great Basin in many areas I have\u00a0regular opportunities to photograph birds perched on it.\u00a0 The various species (Big Sage and Black Sage for example) provide variety in color and leaf shape\u00a0and sometimes you catch the bird on bare twigs or branches or layers of snow\/ice on top of the plant.<\/p>\n

\"lark-sparrow-4976\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1000, f\/8, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0I photographed this Lark Sparrow on sage yesterday – as you can see, the leaf colors are a soft silvery green in early spring.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"loggerhead<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2000, f\/8, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0And this Loggerhead Shrike is from this morning, with the Great Salt Lake (not sky) in the background.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"sagebrush-shrike-8132\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I thought I’d include this image of the same shrike on the same perch as the previous image to give a sense of place and\u00a0perspective and also to show what most of the sagebrush plant\u00a0looks like.\u00a0 This shot was taken at 85 mm while the first one was at 700 mm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"burrowing-owl-1938\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/640, f\/10, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

Burrowing Owls, like this juvenile, like to perch on the top of sage on cool early mornings to bask in the sun.\u00a0 I enjoy seeing the feathers stuck to the sage twigs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"willet-6764\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/8, ISO 500, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0And this time of year the Willets are flying from sage to boulder and back again while declaring their territories and impressing mates.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american-kestrel-8877\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/800, f\/8, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0In winter, ice often adds some interesting detail to a leafless branch as it did for this male American Kestrel.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"white-crowned-sparrow-8373\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

Occasionally I’ll find a sparrow, lark or thrasher down low on one of the main sage branches.\u00a0\u00a0Typically the light is poor down there but this juvenile White Crowned Sparrow happened to park in a sunny spot for a change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"long-billed-curlew-2901\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Long-billed Curlews occasionally perch on the sage but not as often as the Willets do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar-3540\"<\/a>\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0It’s rare to find a Chukar on the sagebrush – I’ve only seen it twice.\u00a0 They usually skulk in the grass or hang out on top of boulders.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern-mockingbird-6571\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0This is one very upset Northern Mockingbird.\u00a0 It apparently had a nest in the sagebrush to the left and a Loggerhead Shrike came in looking for breakfast.\u00a0 The confrontation was very loud and lasted several minutes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"loggerhead-shrike-5812\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0This Loggerhead Shrike and its mate were building a nest in a sagebrush within a few feet of this favorite sage perch.\u00a0 The nesting material in the shrikes bill and feet is bison fur.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"burrowing-owls-2455\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/250, f\/13, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

This was an opportunity that both excited and frustrated me – three juvenile Burrowing Owls on a dead sagebrush perch with early, warm light and a background I liked a lot.\u00a0 But shooting with my long lens and teleconverter just doesn’t allow for much depth of field and even f\/13 didn’t get the bird on the left quite as sharp as I’d have liked.\u00a0 Notice the difference in the size of the pupils\u00a0– makes me wonder if the front two birds had turned their heads toward me a split second before I took the shot – which didn’t give the pupils quite enough time to accomodate.\u00a0 That’s my theory anyway…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For me there’s just something wonderful about sagebrush.\u00a0 In fact, lots of things. When sagebrush is wet its smell is almost intoxicating (at least it is for me).\u00a0 When walking\u00a0through it that scent\u00a0comes wafting up and my mind can’t help but wander\u00a0through old memories and cowboy songs.\u00a0\u00a0 I love the silvery-gray-green color it lends to a hillside.\u00a0 The presence of sagebrush is essential for many species for nesting, habitat, protection or food.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sage Sparrows, Sage Thrashers\u00a0and\u00a0Loggerhead Shrikes nest within the plant and larks, Burrowing\u00a0Owls and Long-billed Curlews nest on the ground in stands of sagebrush.\u00a0 Sagebrush dominates the diet of the Sage Grouse during late fall, winter and early spring. It also makes for an interesting perch for bird photography even though its growth patterns often put obstructions in front of the bird.\u00a0 Since sage is the dominant plant of the Great Basin in many areas I have\u00a0regular opportunities to photograph birds perched on it.\u00a0 The various species (Big Sage and Black Sage for example) provide variety in color and leaf shape\u00a0and sometimes you catch the bird on bare twigs or branches or layers of snow\/ice on top of the plant. \u00a01\/1000, f\/8, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc \u00a0I photographed this Lark Sparrow on sage yesterday – as you can see, the leaf colors are a soft silvery green in early spring.     \u00a01\/2000, f\/8, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc \u00a0And this Loggerhead Shrike is from this morning, with the Great Salt Lake (not sky) in the background.     I thought I’d…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334],"tags":[28,704,62,82,160,197,206,208,702,644,703,325,327],"class_list":["post-5387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","tag-american-kestrel","tag-bison-fur","tag-burrowing-owl","tag-chukar","tag-great-salt-lake","tag-lark-sparrow","tag-loggerhead-shrike","tag-long-billed-curlew","tag-northern-mockingbird","tag-sagebrush","tag-sagebrush-smell","tag-white-crowned-sparrow","tag-willet"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-1oT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}